Easy Success? Or Hard slog?Or.. Maybe Dodgy advice?

When you're looking for success, do you want to find easy success or a hard way to get there?

Dumb question?

Well. Maybe!

We live in a world of sound bite news and instant solutions. We are culturally accustomed to getting what we want as soon as possible with the least amount of inconvenience or disruption. Inevitably, when we're looking for success we can be easily lured into believing that the one size fits all, instant access solution is the answer to our needs.

It’s worth remembering that following easy success, or the simple way, or the fast way may not always serve our best interests.

Easy success may not be the best way.

Taking the easy way often means that we buy into someone else’s idea of what success is and how we should achieve it.

Sometimes it’s a case that we forget that we want a real result, real success. We become attracted instead to the apparent easy way we can reach incredible rewards by putting in little to no effort. We are lured more by the easy method than by the reality of the result.

Here's the hard advice.

Success is a very personal thing. It uses our own individual talents, our own mix of values and our individual personal effort. It uses those in each person's own individual mix to produce success on that individual's terms.

It means that if you're hoping for someone to come along and give you chapter and verse on how to go from broke, lonely, unfit and unhappy to rich, admired, healthy and deliriously happy and successful then the chances are that you'll be disappointed.

Other people just don't have enough information on you and your own personal circumstances. They can’t provide you with that depth of knowledge, tailored for you. And, if they did have that knowledge, are they going to steer you toward your vision of success or to their own version of success?

Ultimately, success is your own personal voyage of discovery. Only you can actually undertake that voyage.

Common Themes

Nothing I’ve said so far means that there aren't common themes to success in people’s lives. History is replete with the stories of men and women who have experienced and enjoyed successful lives. If you want to know about success then try using some of your relaxation or 'entertainment' time for reading the biographies of people that you truly admire.

Be selective though, read only those biographies worthy of your attention. There's an increasing tendency these days for any C-list minor celebrity to have their biography ghost written and put onto the book marketing conveyor belt. That's just personal funding - not giving folks usable lessons.

If you read the biographies of successful people, if you listen to their stories in interviews, after a while you may just realise that there are common themes to success.

Put this thought at the back of your mind to chew over later or for your subconscious to play with...

Discovering the common themes in successful peoples lives and then adding onto that your own individual mix of talents, skills, abilities, values and beliefs can accelerate your own success.

Easy success may have its attractions, but long-term success is something different altogether.